The Cartel Lawyer by Dave Daren (ebook reader below 3000 TXT) 📕

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I chuckled as I turned to pick up my cell phone to call Stephen.

Rina nodded her head and then sauntered away with a wave.

“Hey,” the middle-aged lawyer said as he answered. “Congrats on the new job.”

He sounded distracted, and I could hear the hum of music mixed with the grind of a coffee machine.

“Thanks,” I responded. “I won’t keep you. But I think we should touch base about the Jimmy Suarez and Camilo Fuentes cases.”

“Fuentes?” he asked and then whispered a thank you to someone. “Wait, THE Fuentes family?”

“Yeah,” I said.

Stephen had spent a few years in the prosecutor’s office before joining the other side, which was probably why he recognized the name. He’d switched when he realized that he wanted to help some of the teens that came across his desk rather than send them to prison. He took most of the cases that involved anyone under eighteen, and he almost always had them do community service at the place he volunteered so that he could be a mentor.

“Man, I didn’t know they were your new employers,” the middle-aged lawyer whistled. “You better be careful.”

“I will,” I said. “The boys will be tried together, and I wanted to make sure we’re on the same page with asking for diversion.”

“Oh, yeah,” Stephen replied and I could almost see him bob his head like he did when he was enthusiastic about something. “Jimmy hasn’t been in too much trouble.”

“And the car was returned to its owner without any damage,” I added.

“Exactly,” the other lawyer said. “It shouldn’t be a hard case for either of us.”

“I’m glad we’re thinking the same thing,” I told him. “I’ll talk to you later. Enjoy your coffee.”

“Will do,” my coworker chuckled.

I stuffed my cell phone in my pocket, grabbed my keys and wallet, turned off my computer, and then scooped up my suit jacket and briefcase as I readied myself to leave for the day. My last client for the Public Defender’s Office was taken care of, we’d appear before the judge the next day, and then I would be done and could focus my attention on my mother for the entire weekend.

Camilo’s trial would be first thing on Monday morning, and it wouldn’t be a hard one as long as I could convince the snarky teen to look repentant. He must have managed to pull it off before since he’d received diversion for all of his other brushes with the law. Heck, he’d be finished at the courthouse with enough time to attend his afternoon classes.

I checked in with mom on the way back to my apartment and then decided I’d earned a night of relaxation. I needed something to distract me from my last case with the Public Defender’s Office, my mother’s illness, and Camilo’s trial. So I turned on one of my favorite courtroom dramas and settled in for a night of binging TV and criticizing.

The next day, Rick’s court appearance went by in the blink of an eye, and the young thief thanked me profusely and promised to change his ways. For a brief moment, he might have even meant it, but as we walked out of the courthouse, he was greeted by a group of young men that I’d seen in the courts before.

With a sigh, I returned to the office to finish up the last of my paperwork and make my goodbyes. The promised cake appeared, and though Rina had kept her promise, I had the sense that most of my colleagues seemed to understand that circumstances had pushed me to leave, even if they weren’t sure exactly what those circumstances were. I left as soon as my exit interview was complete, which meant I reached my mother’s house earlier than usual.

My mother refused to relax, however. She was the kind of person who cleaned away her frustrations, and she huffed at me as I tried to take over the kitchen. She’d rolled her eyes at me when I told her I wanted to learn to cook more, but then muttered under her breath in Spanish about how she wouldn’t be around forever and needed to teach me while she could. So the cooking lessons began, though she still complained that I was too messy and tried to tidy up behind me.

By the time that Monday morning rolled around I was eager to have something to focus on other than my stubborn mama. She’d kicked me out of her house after dinner on Sunday and told me that she needed time to herself, and that if I ever so much as looked at her kitchen again, she’d beat me with her chancla.

I woke up before sunrise on Monday to review Camilo’s case, and then I called Stephen to see if he wanted to go to breakfast with me before court. He’d been awake, too, and he’d met me at a place on the same block as the courthouse so we could eat and talk about our plan to present diversion as a sentence. We’d both emailed the prosecutor separately, who’d agreed that the boys should receive diversion and that would be her suggestion, though she informed me that she planned to request a higher fine for my client since he’d been the one to drive.

The humidity had crept in as we ate, and I could feel it wrap around me as Stephen and I walked off our breakfasts. The sun had just begun to peer through the glass skyscrapers to fall on the steps of the courthouse when we arrived, and I knew the concrete would be baking by the time we left.

“Jipato,” Osvaldo called out.

I spotted my new employer in the front passenger seat of his black SUV. It had stopped in front of the courthouse despite the no parking signs, and Osvaldo had